* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"ANTHONY IN WONDERLAND."

It was not till about the middle of the play, and after a narcotic had been
administered to him, that _Anthony_ got there; but we were in Wonderland
almost from the start, without the aid of drugs. For we were asked to
believe that Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY was a visionary, amorous of an ideal which
no earthly woman could realise for him. Occasionally he had caught a
glimpse of it in the creations of Art--at the Tate Gallery or Madame
TUSSAUD'S or the cinema; but in Bond Street never.

And the pity of it was that he had come in for a fortune of seven hundred
thousand pounds odd, which would pass elsewhere unless he married by a
given date. It was therefore the clear duty of his relatives--a couple of
sisters and their husbands--to find a wife for him. After vainly trying him
with every pretty woman of their acquaintance they had resort, in
desperation, to the black art of a certain _Mr. Mortimer John_ (U.S.A.), an
infallible inventor of stunts, who made a rapid diagnosis of the case and
at once pronounced himself confident of success.

Briefly--for it is a long and elaborate story--his scheme is to choose a
charming girl, and make a film drama round her. _Anthony_, with family, is
taken to see the show and occupies the best box in the Prince of Wales's
Theatre, from which, after a little critical comment upon us in the
audience, he falls in love with the heroine. It is the typical film of
lurid life on a Californian ranch, and might almost have been modelled on
one of Mr. Punch's cinema burlesques. There are the familiar scenes of a